Postcards from Tohoku: Japan, One Year Later

On Sunday, one year will have passed since the great tsunami of 2011 launched its “menacingly effective assault on Tohoku,” as the photographer Jake Price described it. “It took down the largest of structures, killed thousands of people, and inundated ancient fields, making them fallow for years to come.” This winter, Price lived with residents of this region in northeastern Japan in their kasetsus—trailer homes provided by the government. “Living in isolation, they endure and exist,” Price told me. “But people want not merely to endure; they want to connect to their culture, art, and history.” In short, they want to belong again.

“In the end,” Price said, “the tsunami’s assault proved a failure. Along the coast, the survivors were far bigger than their assailant. They responded to the situation with compassion and determination, exerting a power far greater than the fury of the tsunami’s black waters.” Price’s show is a tribute to their spirit. Here is a selection of photographs from the participating artists.

Iwaki City. Normally, people can swim here. One of the signs on the chairs said, “Do not eat any seafood up north from Chiba prefecture,” and fishermen decided not to fish when results of sea water and seafood tests came back to show high radioactive contamination. Kosuke Okahara.